hood

Pluralhoods

Formshoods, hooding, hooded

1. 1
   part of clothingnouncountable

   A head covering, typically attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak.

   He zipped up his parka and pulled the drawstrings on the hood tight against the wind.

   The monks filed into the chapel with their hoods drawn low over their faces.

   UsageYou put or pull a hood up over your head and push it back or take it down afterwards.

   Similarcowl

   Note

   The garment sense is the one the word's other coverings are named after: Old English hōd, traditionally traced to a root meaning "to cover". A falcon's blinder, the metal canopy that draws off fumes and the hinged engine cover are all hoods because they sit over something the way this one sits over a head. The slang hood, a gangster or a neighborhood, is a different word, clipped from hoodlum or neighborhood, and shares only the spelling. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 5 facts

   • The other covering senses extend the head-covering sense. en.wikisource.org
   • Hood descends from Old English hōd. en.wiktionary.org
   • The falcon, ventilation and engine coverings belong to the same word as the garment. en.wiktionary.org
   • Gangster hood is a separate formation clipped from hoodlum. en.wiktionary.org
   • Neighborhood hood is a separate formation clipped from neighborhood. en.wiktionary.org
2. 2
   machine covernouncountable

   The hinged cover over the engine of a car or other vehicle (the bonnet in British English); more broadly, a cover over the workings of something, as in under the hood.

   The car looks plain, but it has a powerful engine under the hood.

   He lifted the hood to check the oil before the long drive.

   UsageFor a car, British and Commonwealth English usually say bonnet. Under the hood also means inside any machine or system.

   Note

   The phrase under the hood carries this sense almost everywhere it goes, stretching the car's engine cover over any machine. D. Michael Abrashoff, a ship's captain, was glad to leave looking under the ship's hood to the engineers (2004), and Max Lucado never sees an attendant with a screwdriver under the airplane's hood. From machines the phrase slides easily into how anything works. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • D. Michael Abrashoff was a ship's captain. penguinrandomhouse.com
   • Abrashoff wrote that he preferred leaving engineering and looking under the ship's hood to engineers. en.wiktionary.org
   • Max Lucado wrote about never seeing an attendant with a screwdriver under an airplane's hood. en.wiktionary.org
   • Lucado's own bibliography dates Let the Journey Begin to 1998. The 2015 citation identifies a later edition; the passage's presence in the first edition was not verified. maxlucado.com
3. 3
   nounslangcountable

   A neighborhood, especially a poor inner-city one where someone lives or grew up.

   He still drives back to the hood every Sunday to visit his grandmother.

   Word around the hood is that the corner store is closing.

   UsageUsually with the: back in the hood, around the hood.

   Similarneighborhood

   Note

   The noun belongs to African American Vernacular English and is at home in hip-hop. De La Soul's “Stakes Is High” (1996) makes a lament of the clipping, hearing in the shortened word a sign that people no longer act as neighbors to one another.

4. 4
   protective covernouncountable

   An enclosure that protects something, especially one that shields it from above.

   The old well was fitted with a slate hood to keep leaves and rain out of the water.

   Each streetlight sits under a metal hood that shields the bulb from snow.

   Similarcover, canopy

5. 5
   smoke ventnouncountable

   A metal covering that leads to a vent and draws smoke or fumes away.

   Students may open the solvent bottles only inside the hood, where the vent carries the fumes outside.

   The restaurant had to install a larger hood over its grills to meet the fire code.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To place a hood over or on a person, animal, or object.

   Falconers hood their birds so they stay calm while traveling.

   At the ceremony, her adviser hooded each new doctor in turn.

   Oppositeunhood

   Note

   The past participle does much of this verb's work as an adjective: a hooded falcon, a hooded figure in a doorway. Its opposite is unhood, what a falconer does just before the bird is flown. Graduations give the verb a ceremonial use too, when an adviser hoods each new doctor with the colored fold of a degree. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

   • Unhood is the opposite of hood: it means to remove a hood. en.wiktionary.org
   • A falconer removes the bird's hood before flying it. vowley.com
   • Doctoral graduation ceremonies can include hooding performed by the graduate's adviser. graduateschool.colostate.edu
   • An academic hood has colored fabric associated with the degree. kent.edu
7. 7
   gangsternounslangcountable

   A gangster or thug; a tough, violent criminal.

   The movie follows a young hood who works his way up through the city's mob.

   Local hoods ran a protection racket out of the back of the bar.

   UsageA hood is a person; the hood usually means a neighborhood.

   Similarthug, gangster, hoodlum, mobster, crook

   Note

   This hood is hoodlum cut short, and it has nothing to do with coats or cars. It is slang, and in the plural it suggests a gang: John McPhee's The Pine Barrens (1968) has teen-age hoods stealing cars, stripping them and setting them alight. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • The criminal sense of hood is a clipping of hoodlum, distinct from the garment and car senses. en.wiktionary.org
   • John McPhee wrote The Pine Barrens. archive.org
   • The Pine Barrens was first published in book form in 1968. pinelandsalliance.org
   • The book describes teenage hoods stealing cars, stripping them and setting them alight. en.wiktionary.org
8. 8
   street cultureadjectiveslang

   Relating to everyday life in the inner city, both its good and bad sides, and especially to people's attachment to and love for their neighborhoods.

   The film is a hood classic, funny and painful in equal measure, and full of love for the block.

   Her paintings capture hood life: barbecues on the stoop, sirens at night, and neighbors who look out for each other.

   UsageUsually comes before a noun: hood life, a hood movie, a hood classic.

9. 9
   snake necknouncountable

   An expansion on the sides of the neck found in many elapid snakes, such as the Egyptian cobra and the Indian cobra.

   When threatened, the Indian cobra raises its body and flares its hood.

   Photographers kept their distance as the cobra's hood swelled out on both sides of its neck.

   UsageA cobra spreads, flares or raises its hood.

   Note

   The snake builds it from its own skeleton: long, movable ribs just behind the head swing outward and stretch the loose skin of the neck into a broad, flat shield. A cobra spreads it when it feels threatened, so a raised hood is a warning to keep away. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

   • A cobra's hood is supported by long ribs in the neck. en.wikipedia.org
   • Movement of the ribs expands the hood. journals.biologists.com
   • Hooding broadens and flattens the neck. journals.biologists.com
   • Cobras spread their hoods when threatened as a defensive display intended to deter threats. zoo.sandiegozoo.org
10. 10
    skin foldnouncolloquialcountable

    The prepuce: the fold of skin covering the tip of the penis or the clitoris.

    Her gynecologist checked the skin under the clitoral hood for signs of infection.

    At the piercing studio she asked whether a ring through the hood of her clitoris would hurt much.

    UsageMost often in clitoral hood. For the penis, the everyday word is foreskin.

    Similarprepuce, foreskin

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